How to Learn New Job Skills without Going Back to School

In my mid-30s, I did the math and realized I still had a few decades of work left ahead of me, so instead of staying in my career rut, I decided to go back to school and get my Master’s degree. Along the way, I racked up a good amount of student loans, and yet my career change was only minor. If you’ve also done the career math and would like to change direction or simply add on to your current skill set, you can update your resume without going back to college or into debt.

Social Media Skills

In an increasingly interconnected world, social media skills can help you be competitive in a full range of careers by enabling you to offer yourself as a valuable public resource in your field of expertise. You don’t have to get a certificate or sit in a classroom to add Twitter credibility to your experience. In fact, Twitter offers a “Twitter 101: How should I get started using Twitter?” page to give you a jump start, and a simple online search can help you find thousands of free articles across the Internet offering additional Twitter tips and tricks. You can pick up social media chops while working your current job and raise your visibility (and employability) whether you’re a hair stylist or a real estate mogul.

Web Skills

Similarly, web skills are easy to acquire and are also pocketbook friendly. You can learn how to design a website by taking online classes at your convenience. For example, Lynda.com provides training videos with subscription plans that range from $25 for a month up to $375 for a full year of learning, which can help you learn Web, business, design, video, and computing skills on the side. Free online articles and YouTube videos offer similar instruction, but require a little more online searching. In my case, I read free online “how-to guides” and started creating WordPress websites for friends and family members, then moved on to designing low-cost sites for small local businesses in exchange for services, such as personal training. Like social media skills, Web skills look good on almost any resume.

Free Online Courses

Open source courses are becoming increasingly common. MIT, for example, offers free access to courses and reading materials for a range of classes. The Khan Academy offers more than 167,000,000 online lessons in everything from economics to humanities, while Yale University provides classes from A (African American Studies) to Z (well, maybe just to S: Spanish and Portuguese).

If you’ve done the career math and would like to change direction or simply add on to your current skill set, you can update your resume without going back to college or into debt.

Volunteering

Another great way to learn for free is to volunteer at conferences and events. In addition to getting into some pricey events for free, volunteers often get to attend sessions when they aren’t working, and the best part might be the networking opportunities. The “hallway tracks” of events allow attendees and volunteers to meet the speakers, attendees, and other professionals, which is another way to soak up expert knowledge without taking out a second mortgage to finance your education.

Picking up new skills might not translate into a different job, but your new knowledge could lead to a career change, improve your current position, or simply keep the creative juices flowing. After building a few websites, I decided that being a web designer isn’t for me. Instead, I wrote a couple of articles in my free time, and three months later, I made the leap from a corporate environment into the world of self-employment. The social media, Web, writing, and networking skills I acquired while working my full-time job paid off more than my Master’s degree or student loans…which I’ve yet to pay off.